


A Nice Boy

by NiRinn



Series: A Nice Boy [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, Cancer, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Child Peter Quill, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2333168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiRinn/pseuds/NiRinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Quill is not a nice boy.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em><br/>Sometimes he get annoyed when looking at his knife. There’s a little ring of red stuck where the blade enters the hilt. He’s tried to scrape it off, but it’s really stubborn. Mostly though he’s happy when he looks at his knife. Remembers how it slides so perfectly through flesh.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>It makes him smile.</em>
    <br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	A Nice Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Do be aware this deals with a young character with violent psychopathic traits, I've put warnings in the tags so take heed.
> 
> Quick thanks to all who kudos'd, commented and bookmarked my first work. I was walking on clouds for days!

Peter is a few months from three when Meredith sets up playdate with the neighbour's boy, Tyler Jonas.

 

It doesn’t go well.

 

When they arrive at the Jonas’s house Sarah welcomes them at the door. She coos over Peter as they move towards the sitting room. Tyler’s sitting on the ground in a yellow shirt and jean overalls, he looks up from the wooden blocks he’s playing with briefly only to try and duck down behind the wall he’s building.

 

Sarah laughs, explains “He’s a little shy”.

 

Meredith chuckles a little as she places Peter on the floor. “Peter this is Tyler, he’s two months younger than you. Do you want to say hello?”

 

“Hello.” he politely parrots back to them.

 

Shes sets Peter down near the blocks and he reaches for one and adds it to the wall Tyler’s been making. Tyler perks up a little to look at him and hesitantly does the same.   
  


Meredith and Sarah share a smile, as Sarah motions her head towards the kitchen.

 

“Tea?”

 

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

 

They stand there in the kitchen, drinking tea and chatting. Meredith can hear wood clanking against wood, and high pitched voices murmuring from the other room. It’s a nice feeling, being able to talk to an adult for a while, no child in immediate need of attention.

 

At least it  _is_ nice. Until a shrill voice shouts “NO!” and then a thud and a cry. They both shove their teas onto the counter and run into the sitting room.

 

Peter is scowling at Tyler, and Tyler is curled up crying. A cube is lying beside Tyler, it’s painted blue but there’s a splash of red decorating a corner.

 

Tyler’s squirms as Sarah runs over and pulls Tyler’s hands from his face. He’s screaming and there’s blood dripping onto Tyler’s yellow shirt, his nose is bleeding.

 

Meredith seems to realise Peter hit him with the block at the same time Sarah does.

 

Sarah lifts Tyler, hold him close to her chest “Get out! God, just take him and get out!”.

 

Meredith takes Peter and leaves. She’s trying to carry Peter home but he keeps  _thrashing,_ and well, she’s shouting.

 

“Why‽ Why did you do that Peter‽ You shouldn’t hurt people! It’s very bad!”

 

She pauses as they reach the door to their house. She sets him on the porch, kneels down and looks him square in the face, even as he tries to squirm away.

 

“Do you understand Peter? You hurt him! Do you understand that that was wrong?”

 

He keeps squirming in her hands, red face scrunching up.  _“Why?_ ”, he practically screams it at her.

 

She can’t deal with this. God.

 

She takes him inside, spanks him ten times and sends him to his room for the night.

 

_He is too young to remember the incident specifically. He will however remember that people will hurt you if they see you hurting someone else._  

 

They are never invited to the Jonas’s again.

 

* * *

Peter starts school when he turns six. He doesn’t like it. The other children are clingy, sometimes they take his things, or things he is playing with. Some of them smell and Mary’s nose is always running.

 

Peter decides that other children are gross and he wants nothing to do with them.

 

Peter’s teacher is concerned that he doesn’t seem to make any friends. She brings it up to Meredith at the first Parent-Teacher Meeting. Meredith promises to talk to him about it.

 

_Peter is supposed to be nice to the other children. So he tries it, he still doesn’t like them, but he learns things. He learns if he’s nice, then sometimes the other kids will give him things. He know he isn’t supposed to make other people cry. But if he says the right thing to one person they can make others cry for him. Peter’s teacher doesn’t notice this. She’s just relieved he seems to be making friends, if anything he seems to have become a bit of a charmer._

 

* * *

They put an electric insect killer outside the front door. At night time he likes to sit by the window and watching the light and listening to the  _crack_  of insects hitting it. If he squints his eyes sometimes he can even see them fall.

 

* * *

 

Peter doesn’t remember the first time he met his grandfather. His mother always drags him over to see him on the weekends. He lives in a small one story house, it’s covered in white panels and has a deck that squeaks whenever Peter walks on it.

 

Everytime Peter’s mother takes him to visit his grandfather welcomes him with a hug and a “How you doin’ champ?”. Peter doesn’t really like his grandfather, he’s old and sometimes when he holds Peter tight Peter imagines he can smell the death creeping up on the old man.

 

But Peter’s grandfather gives him a fiver everytime he visits. So everytime his grandpa asks “How you doin’ champ?”, Peter gives him a big grin and says “Pretty cool!”, then follows it up with some chatter about a song he heard on the radio or one of the new Captain America comics.

 

Sometimes Peter’s grandpa talks about his time in the war, but his mum always frowns at him when he does and tries to change the subject.

 

A couple times, when his mum isn’t looking his grandpa takes him up to the attic shows him an old rifle he has and a few knives he got while in the army.

 

One time Peter sneaks up by himself and tucks a knife into his pants, he pats himself and makes sure it doesn’t show through his shirt.

 

Later that night he can’t help looking at how it reflects the light from his lamp.

 

He stuffs it between the mattress and the slats of the bed.

 

_Peter doesn’t like his uncle. But like with most relationships it comes with certain rewards._

 

* * *

He likes books about hunting. It’s not an unusual sport in their town so it isn’t hard to get books on it. He borrows them for the little school library, and sometimes he visits the Raynes's hunting store. Ms Raynes works at the counter, he’s always polite to her and she always gives him big smile and calls him a ‘cutie’.

 

Mr Raynes thinks hunting is what all boys should be into, he likes to give lectures on baiting and trapping. How to follow tracks, how to hang a dead deer, skin it and cut it, and how to get rid of the carcass once he’s got all he needs from it.

 

_Peter learns a lot._

 

* * *

Sometimes Meredith see Peter playing outside, pauses and wonders. Her boy looks just like his daddy, he’s so smart and he always helps out around the house. But… sometimes, sometimes his eyes look  _wrong._ Sometimes she thinks he doesn’t love her. She shakes her head and sighs, she’s probably being silly again.

 

She starts to turn from the window but pauses as she notices the birds. It’s not unusual to see them, it’s just, the bird feeder out back seems to be attracting less birds than usual. Usually there’s five or six hanging around in their garden, but now there’s only two.

 

_Three are buried under shrubs in the garden. One is hidden in a shoebox in the very back of the shed. He wants to see what the bones will look like when all the meat is gone._

 

* * *

The Jonas’s dog goes missing.

 

_He’s easy to lure, all it takes is a couple sausages from the fridge. It’s different with a big animal. Mostly there’s just a lot more blood._

 

* * *

William “Billy” Reeves is nine years old. He’s two years ahead of Peter but he always finds time to push Peter around.

 

Before class and after, during lunch, Billy is there. He calls Peter a freak, short and stupid and poor. Says his mother’s a crazy whore. Says only crazy people think aliens are real.

 

Three months after Billy starts bothering him, Billy starts pushing him. He dumps his bag out on the ground, stomps on his sandwiches, cuts up his books.

 

Peter  _hates_ him.

 

William “Billy” Reeves is nine years old when he goes missing. William “Billy” Reeves will never turn ten.

 

_Billy’s parents put pictures and posters of him up all over town. The police come by the school, ask if they’ve seen any strange adults hanging around. No one has._

 

_Three weeks later a child’s backpack turns up in a river down state. Billy never turns up._

 

* * *

_Sometimes after school Peter fishes his knife out from it’s hiding place in his room and remembers._

 

Peter had shown off a new Captain America comic at school, he knew Billy would want it for himself.

 

He’d made sure to stay around teachers that day, to make sure Billy couldn’t take it at school.

 

As soon as the bell rang Peter had grabbed his bag and jogged out of the school. Waited by the gates until Billy came out and saw him. Then Peter had ran and Billy followed him.

 

Billy was  _stupid_.

 

‘Course it probably didn’t help make Billy any smarter when Peter smashed his head with a river rock.

 

_Sometimes he get annoyed when looking at his knife. There’s a little ring of red stuck where the blade enters the hilt. He’s tried to scrape it off, but it’s really stubborn. Mostly though he’s happy when he looks at his knife. Remembers how it slides so perfectly through flesh._

_It makes him smile._

 

* * *

It doesn’t take long to realise something is wrong. People start visiting lots, talking lots to him and his mum. At first he thinks it has something to do with Billy, but it’s not. It has something to do with his mum.

 

His mum is sick.

 

She starts going to the doctors office a lot. Sometimes she goes to the hospital. Everytime she comes back his grandpa comes to live with them for a while.

 

Peter is rather surprised to find he doesn’t mind too much. But that’s mostly because his mum can’t look after him or herself when she comes back.

 

She vomits  _all the time_. It’s disgusting.

 

Peter isn’t too bothered that his mum is sick. He has to deal with grandpa and the house smells like chemicals a lot, but that just means he spends more time outside. He’ll be happier when things go back to normal.

 

It takes three months before he realises things are not going to go back to normal.

 

He only really realises because Mrs. Marshall has a big mouth and was gossiping with Sister Jane at the grocery store. They stop talking as soon as they seem him walk out from behind the shelving, but it doesn’t matter.

 

He knows now his mother is going to die.

 

That’s not acceptable.

 

She’s  _leaving_ him. Why does she think she can leave him? Peter makes others leave, no one is supposed to leave him!

 

He notices then.  _Really_ notices.

 

Sees how her body is thin but her cheeks are plump and red. How the hair that he’d noticed in appearing in the bathroom bin no longer appears, because there’s none left to fall off. How sometimes she gets distracted, how she forgets things, stares off into space.

 

He hates this. He hates  _her._ He’s so, so  _angry._

 

* * *

Peter’s mum entered the hospital last week and she hasn’t come back out.

 

He’s had to stay with his grandpa (which is bad), but he’s had to visit his mother at the hospital (which is worse).

 

It smells  _awful_. Even worse than grandpa’s house.

 

And nothing exciting ever happens in his mum’s ward. Just sick people dying slowly.

 

Like his mum is dying slowly and nothing he does changes anything.

 

People are making decisions about him,  _for_ him. He has no control over anything anymore and it makes him  _furious._

 

He beats up Samuel Wilkins at school.

 

Samuel gets in one good shot and it bruises purple on his face.

 

His grandpa sighs at him when he picks him up, sighs  _as if he has the right to judge Peter._

 

They turn left instead of right on McLaughlin Drive, so Peter knows they’re not going home. They’re going to the hospital.

 

Peter’s grandpa keeps tensing his hands on the wheel, keeps looking at Peter opening his mouth and shutting it again.  _He looks like a stupid fish_.

 

They go to his Mum’s room and something is different today. There’s more people than usual and his Grandpa makes him sit outside while he Grandpa goes inside.

 

When he does get called in, everyone turns and  _looks_ at him. As if some big show’s about to start.

 

He knows what’s happening.

 

His mum starts talking, but somethings gone wrong with his ears. All he can hear is this staticky sound like the one that comes through on the radio.

 

She’s still talking, and then she reaches for his hand.

 

He  _knows_ she’s trying to say goodbye. _Trying to leave him._  She’s not allowed to leave him!

 

But then she’s gone.

 

She’s gone and his grandpa is pulling him out of the room. He pushes Peter back onto the chair, and says something. It doesn’t matter what, Peter’s not listening.

 

All he can hear is the static. He watches his grandpa go back into the room, feels how his body feels like it’s freezing and boiling at the same time.

 

He runs.

 

He runs and runs past all the white walls and through the sickly smells until he’s outside.

 

He’s outside and running and he’s so angry it feels like he’s going to  _explode._

 

He just starts punching the ground, he doesn’t even know why. He’s punching and he thinks he’s yelling because his throat feels sort of sore. He’s got dirt and blood on his knuckles and it feels like his vision is tunnelling.

 

At least, until he notices the light.

 

There’s light on the ground and on his hands and he tries to look up but it’s blinding.

 

Then all of a sudden he isn’t punching the earth anymore, because he isn’t on Earth at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes! Had this sitting on my computer for a while. I've been busy the last week or so (and will be for the next week) but I decided I wanted to get this finished tonight. I do have the next part of the series planned out and it's already about half written. Question, does anyone know how to find a Beta? I worry about my grammar...
> 
> Anyway any comments or kudos would be super lovely!


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